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366 : Scientific Contents in Prakṛta Canons
specific state of the non-living. Thus, there is no separate living for materialists like Cārvākas or Buddhas (who call it as aggregation of five skandhas or basic elements and equivalent to the physical body and psychical mind). They seem to believe in spontaneous generation of life. The continuity or feeling of similarity is said to be due to continuing streams of subconscious mind impressions (Vāsanā) like a burning lamp*. This postulate is also partially supported by Acārānga which classifies mobile beings in eight varieties on the basis of birth including spontaneous generations. It seems there was a time when both options were acceptable.
It is difficult to guess when independent existence of these two entities was formulated. Probably, the Ajivikas were the first to make an advance over the above unitary spiritualist or materialist views by assuming the living as separate entity from the non-living one. Their living unit is material in nature. It has transmigration properties - a non-aryan theme according to Basham. It is atomic, circular or octagonal in shape and blue in colour. Basham has called some of these points as strange, fantastic and bizarre. Since then, whatever may be the origin of the living, it has been treated as a separate entity by most Indian philosophers denoting it by several names as tabulated in Table 1. Each of these systems has its own description about it having many similar or dis-similar points regarding name, nature and properties. The non-material living cannot be identified without its association with fine physical bodies with different names: Linga-sarira (S), Sūkṣma-sarira (V) or Taijasa or Karman sarira (J). That is why the living one in the world is said to be impure with self-purification as its aim of worldly life. How this non-material and pure living becomes initially impure, is not very clear even from Jaina canons for a common man'. Though some philosophies have different names for worldly living (Jiva, Jivātmā) and pure living (Atmā, Paramātmā etc.), but the Jainas have intermixed the two states of the living during their descriptions creating some
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